Henry Rousso to Present in the Glasscock Center Lecture Series: “How Do We Keep Knowing?”

The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research is pleased to announce this Spring’s second public lecture in our continuing “How Do We Keep Knowing?” Glasscock Center Lecture Series. Dr. Henry Rousso, Director of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, will present his study entitled "Post-Holocaust and Post-Colonial Memories: The French Battlefield," on Tuesday, 20 March 2007 at 7:30 p.m. in the Glasscock Building, Room 311.

In his talk, Rousso will explore what he calls “the wounded memories of Vichy France” and examine how the recognition of France’s involvement in the Holocaust led to profound changes in representations of its past. In the last twenty years, the idea of reparation for past crimes has influenced "public policies of the past." According to Rousso, far from being an element of the so called “exception française," the debates, policies, and even laws that address the past are now part of a "global memory" and of a trend indicating new relationships between past and present in contemporary societies.

Rousso began his career with a focus on World War II and the Holocaust, both of which inform his more recent work on collective memory and the functions of narratives of the past. His publications are extensive and some, such as The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944 (1991), Vichy, An Ever-Present Past (1998), and The Haunting Past (2002), have been translated into English.

This event is free and open to the public. For more information, see our website http://glasscock.tamu.edu/ or contact the Glasscock Center at 979-845-8328.